Does President Obama have chops to wrap up his trade deals?

Some presidents have a natural affinity for trade deals, but in the first year of his administration, President Barack Obama seemed to many observers like he couldn’t care less. He appointed a likable Dallas mayor without much experience in the field to be his trade representative and gave him very little negotiating to do.

Four years later, Obama has a chance to create the biggest free-trade deal in history — a pact involving 12 countries in the Asia-Pacific region, dwarfing NAFTA — and remaking global trade policy for a generation.

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The question is, can Obama actually do it? There’s plenty of reason for doubt.

Republicans see little evidence that Obama is prepared to commit the political capital to win approval of trade promotion authority, legislation many believe is critical to the negotiation of trade deals. The biggest battle Obama could face there is with fellow Democrats because of their close ties to union groups who see trade deals as vehicles for companies to ship jobs overseas.

“Any president who doesn’t want that [TPA] is nuts. But yet, they haven’t pushed that, and I suspect that it’s because the unions don’t want them to do it,” Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, the top Republican on the Finance Committee, told POLITICO.

The legislation, which former President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, failed twice to win after it expired in 1994, would allow Obama to submit trade deals to Congress for an up-or-down vote without any amendments. In exchange, Congress would set out detailed negotiating objectives for trade agreements.

Many consider the TPA bill, also known as fast track, essential to completing the final, tough trade-offs in negotiations. Countries making politically difficult trade concessions to the United States need to have confidence Congress won’t amend the deal, trade experts say.

As the administration is trying to wrap up talks on the Trans-Pacific Partnership by the end of the year, “they have handicapped themselves by not having trade promotion authority,” said a former U.S. trade official who asked not to be identified. “You cannot strike the right balance of ambition in the agreement if you have one hand tied behind your back.”

If the White House tries to finish the TPP negotiations without trade promotion authority, it most likely will be a weaker agreement, the official said.

Former President George W. Bush won TPA in 2002 but after one of the bitterest trade fights in memory. The final package passed the House by a three-vote margin with most Democrats opposed.

Rep. Matt Salmon, an Arizona Republican, recently scoffed at the idea that others in his party might vote against TPA simply because they don’t want to give Obama any more authority.

“Not at all. I think when it comes to trade, when it comes to strengthening the economy, if the president wants to do the right thing, so do we,” Salmon said in remarks at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

While Obama mentioned TPA in a speech in August and in remarks to his Export Council in September, Republicans say he hasn’t really used his bully pulpit to push for the bill or worked behind the scenes to bolster Democratic support.

However, U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman told POLITICO he spends a “significant portion” of each week on the Hill meeting with both Democrats and Republicans to make the case for TPA.

“I think we are certainly carrying our share of the weight on this one,” Froman said.

Obama’s inability thus far to get TPA is one weakness in his trade game. Additionally, he recently missed what could have been a slam-dunk in the more than three-year-old talks when he decided to skip a key meeting with other TPP leaders because of the U.S. government shutdown.